Exposure to one narrative type makes groups drift apart and grow more extreme collectively

Evidence

Similarly – like the Twitter users in our graph on p. 122 – if you are mostly exposed to conspiratorial narratives, you become less and less likely to be exposed to, attend to, and share other types of content. If the same happens to the other group, then the net result is that both groups drift further and further apart and become more extreme in their beliefs. We have already talked about how this process occurs at an individual level in chapter 2, but it is important to recognize that this can also happen on a collective level when we aggregate the opinions of an entire group together. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 438

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Groups split favorably toward their own members and derogate outgroup attributes — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1973; Subcultural group cohesion creates insularity breeding collective delusion — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 539

Broader Connections

• Groups split favorably toward their own members and derogate outgroup attributes #expands (0.72) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1973
• Subcultural group cohesion creates insularity breeding collective delusion #expands (0.72) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 539